Tag Archives: no chargers

Day 3 – Crossing over

At last, a normal day! At least a normal travel day that is. Just over 220km to our first camp in Sweden. The weather forecast held true and we were greeted by the early morning sun. Time to dry for a change.

Happy child running

Number 3 had an enormous breakfast of two full helpings of porridge – maybe because he had plans for the morning. He got his wishes anyway and we spend another good while down at the beach throwing rocks, exploring the pier and scaring away crabs. He was so happy!

The opposite could be said of our daughter. Still very much opposed to the wellingtons, her preferred state of being was suckerfish to mama-shark. Not the best conditions for a speedy packing up. Regardless, we managed to leave at a respectable 10.15am.

With the motorway quite empty and no traffic jam in sight, we managed to make it to Copenhagen just a hair after our preferred lunch time. Both kids were asleep most of the way (even missed the first big bridge crossing), though – so we even opted against a brief charge stop – and why would we: We were heading for a charge point in Copenhagen anyway, right?

Smorrebrod with shrimps

Well – it turns out: Copenhagen really has a lot of charge points all over town, but unfortunately they are not reserved for charging EV. So there was little chance of finding a free one, competing with the stinkers for the precious few parking spots. This felt somehow worse than no chargers at all – we could see them, all free (also teasing us as free in the apps), but inaccessible due to parking stinkers. It might make sense to the Danes, but I hated it. With lunchtime already gone past, we opted to skip the charge this time and just find something to eat. After a mad dash to the loo, of course…

The spot we aimed for repaid us a little for the failed charger hunt: Refurbished market halls now a fancy hybrid between fresh food marked and foody hangout with heaps of great things to pick up on the go and devour at one of the provided tables. Number 3 was quite adamant about wanting “a whole fish”. So the three of us carnivores got in line at the Smørrebrød stall while Nina got herself a freshly made pizza. I might have gone overboard with three different sandwiches, but it turned out Number 3 really meant it and continued his hungry streak by almost finishing the fried fish Smørrebrød while the Agent of Entropy took a liking to the shrimp salad one.

Number 3 checking out the dead fishies

It was quite late by now and we were good to move on. After all, Sweden is the destination for this trip – Copenhagen can wait for another day. Now it was time to tackle the øresundbron. On the way, I tried to find out if my campground reservation went through all right last night (spoiler, it didn’t). And just like that, by 3.30pm, we were in Sweden. We even had some treats for coffee time on board (which Nina insisted on buying at the patissierie stall in the market halls).

That is when things got a bit annoying, unfortunately. The reservation did not go through, but we were lucking in getting the very last spot with electricity available – even though it was as far away from anything as possible. Two trips to the reception later, everything was set up and Puru Hiko was charging. And then I got a phone call: If I could get back to reception, I got the wrong information, I could in fact not charge the EV, no matter how slowly. This is the first time that happened in 20+ nights with Puru Hiko, and just when we would really have needed it, too. Now we have to start the tour on Friday with an immediate stop at the charger.

I tried my best not to get hung up too much and cook some nice dinner from our spoils at the fresh food market in Copenhagen: Fresh Tagiatelle with creamy Gorgonzola sauce. 

  • Right after breakfast Number 3 started asking when we’ll go down to the beach again. Unfortunately, we also had to pack so he had to wait a little
  • Cuddle mode: enganged
  • Finally, back to throwing stones 🙂
  • Good posture for throwing. Could be shot put
  • The Agent looking unhappy even at the beach. Or at least, sceptical.
  • Comforting the Agent
  • Flo and Number 3 got some time to explore the pier while the Agent got more cuddles in the tent
  • Almost there
  • Epic shot from Number 3 on the pier
  • Happy child running
  • Long Agent is looooooooong
  • Copenhagen market halls. Are you shocked yet?
  • Smorrebrod stall in the market halls
  • Window shopping for smorrebrod
  • Smorrebrod with shrimps
  • The Agent took a liking to Flo’s shrimp smorrebrod…even if it doesn’t look like it
  • “A whole fish! For me”
  • Unhappy child: He spilled his lemonade on his shirt and pants
  • We actually bought fresh tagliatelle for dinner
  • Close up of the seafood
  • Number 3 checking out the dead fishies
  • Colourful tomatoes
  • My favourite market hall….sweet treats and desserts
  • Öresund bridge at sunset

Day 21 – Low Energy

The usual reaction to any city we visit is: “Wow, that was fun. We can imagine coming here again.” Sometimes there may be a thought of: “Ok, we have seen this now.” But only a very few places manage to disappoint us so completely that they get added to the TIHI category. Bozen, well done, you became memorable to us in the worst possible way 😀

At least the day started well – the sun was in our backs now, so breaking camp was a much more relaxed and cooler affair than the setup last night.

diligent application of sunscreen – at least until BionTech has that skin-cancer vaccine fully figured out …

The plan is straightforward – we need to be in the Netherlands in four days. Well, we want to be – since long before we decided that Italy would be our best shot we made plans to visit old traveling friends at the end of this parental leave – same as we had done last time with Number 3. As the astute observer might notice: The Netherlands are not, strictly speaking, along the way to Frankfurt. But we were committed, felt we had done northern Italy enough justice and strapped in for some decent long distance travel (for European standards).

To avoid even more Covid-related paperwork and hassle, we would stop once right before the Austrian border still in Italy (well, the autonomous province of South Tyrol) and then pass through Austria in one day to avoid some hassle. That meant today was the first of four consecutive road trip days, and the shortest distance. With the EV, each of them should look roughly the same – first leg, quick charge lunch break, second leg, camp. We opted for the fastest route via the motorways rather than the scenic roads – we would probably need 2 more days to avoid pushing the little ones too much going scenic.

A roadside castle using a hill as an excellent defensible position

So, I planned ahead and saw that Italy did not really have fast chargers along the motorway, at rest stops like the rest of Europe, at least not here. If we needed to come off the toll road anyway, might as well add one more city, right? Bozen, the capital of the German speaking autonomous province of “Südtirol” was on our way, reached roughly at lunchtime. It had six public chargers marked within walking distance of the two recommended eateries on the Lonely Planet app – perfect, or so we thought.

With growing disbelief, I had to realise that every single public charger on the otherwise excellent app I am using has been removed. It seems, there are only three charge points left in Bozen, and they were A: in a paid parking garage and B: all in use, obviously. I have nothing against paying for parking if the chargers are available, but this was for me a clear indicator that we had made it back to fat old German-speaking climate-denier country.

It was late, we gave up – I mean our car has plenty of range – and settled on at least finding something to eat. We did, and again it was a beautiful reminder of what we hate about our own culture. All that was to say about the food at Gasthof Fink was that the portions are too big and they despise vegetarians. Would you like a triple layer Schnitzel, or two sad slices of undercooked eggplant for the same price, mam? Let’s leave it at that – we will not be back.

Our camp in Brixen without our car which was charging

Brixen, and the hotel / campground we chose as our stop for the day, turned out to be the light at the end of the tunnel, on the other hand. We arrived to excellent service, a really well-kept campground attached to the hotel and a nice pool. The reception offered that I could use the free guest chargers to top up the car before moving to our camp and then top it up with the 6A overnight. It was perfect, even though we looked a bit funny relaxing and cooking on our site amidst all our stuff but without the car. 

  • diligent application of sunscreen – at least until BionTech has that skin-cancer vaccine fully figured out …
  • It’s mostly just holding the steering wheel lightly – with all the driving assistents doing the work
  • top of lake Garda
  • We stopped briefly at a viewing point overlooking Lake Garda
  • A roadside castle using a hill as an excellent defensible position
  • Salewa’s headquarter in Bolzano containing an outlet and a climbing hall
  • Another roadside castle that I managed to take a shot of
  • The Alps are coming closer again
  • Our camp in Brixen without our car which was charging
  • Number 3 in the pool. The Agent wasn’t too fond of the experience
  • Flo made a delicious mushroom risotto for dinner even though it was really hot, still, and the kids would stay up later to give our tent a chance to cool down a little
  • Both kids got a surprise dessert as fellow campers gave them two tiny milkyway bars